Anonymous takes child porn sites offline

A band of hackivists operating under the Anonymous banner say they took more than 40 child pornography websites and published a list of 1500 claimed users of the sites.

In statements on pastebin - though lacking an 'official' press release back-up - the hackers detail how they went rooting around a darknet site called Hidden Wiki, an index of sites hidden from casual surfers and search engines.

"While browsing the Hidden Wiki we noticed a section called Hard Candy which was dedicated to links to child pornography," the anonymous Anons wrote. "We then removed all links on the website, within 5 minutes the links were edited back in by an admin. For this reason, we will continue to make the Hidden Wiki unavailable."

The hackers then say they found a company, Freedom Hosting to be "the host of the largest collection of child pornography on the internet. We then issued a warning to remove the illegal content from their server, which they refused to do."

Taking things into their own hands, the hacktivists say they then "infiltrated the shared hosting server of Freedom Hosting and shutdown services to all clients due to their lack of action to remove child pornography from their server. At apprx 5:00pm CST on October 15, 2011 Freedom Hosting installed their backups and restored services to their child pornography clients. We then issued multiple warnings to remove all child pornography from their servers, which Freedom Hosting refused to do.

"At apprx 8:00pm CST on October 15, 2011 despite new security features, we once again infiltrated the shared hosting server at Freedom Hosting and stopped service to all clients."

The statement says Freedom Hosting has become "#OpDarknet Enemy Number One", and vows to continue to take down sites set up to share child pornography.

"This statement is not just aimed at Freedom Hosting, but everyone on the Internet. It does not matter who you are, if we find you to be hosting, promoting, or supporting child pornography, you will become a target," they warn.